There is a motivational seminar that I have the opportunity to attend. Honestly I almost didn't sign up as I lake the motivation to attend [care]. We'll see how it goes though my standards will not be high.

Managed to take 5 more loads to the storage unit this week. We're now down to 2 dressers and almost all of our movies are gone. A few of the closets are empty and one of the rooms is nearly clear.

We worked on the trampoline last night and it was more difficult than I had considered. The way the net is attached is through a pair of straps that are tied together in a square knot. This part was fairly difficult to remove due the the number of them. It didn't help that it was in the dark and was covered in spiders (I hate spiders...) We managed to get the net removed and the spring protector off, now I need to remove all the springs and then disassemble the base which shouldn't be too bad. Yes, I still have the hook that makes the springs easier to handle.

Haven't looked at any new houses this week as we've been busy getting our house ready to go. Checked out renting a disc sander and it's $52 and the sandpaper is $4-8 each, depending on grit. That would probably be a good deal to get done but I'm wary as I don't want to make it worse than it is now (it's scratched from a chair and the treadmill).

Unanswered phone calls, text messages and never a call back. No response to posts except impersonal and now removed as a friend on here. I've taken the hint finally and won't be bothering you again. I'm sorry for whatever I've done and I wish you the best.

We checked out another 5 houses on Sunday. One of which was the new construction that I mentioned earlier. It was a sale pending home that we checked out just to get an idea of what it would be when finished. The biggest issue that I can see would be that it has no area at all for a computer that would be useful. Kitchen, dining room, living room and bath room downstairs, 3 bedrooms upstairs with a master bath, laundry and then an unfinished basement. She doesn't want the computer in the living room but it wouldn't make sense to put it in the basement where it's out of the way.

We checked out 4 other houses on Sunday but I can't remember much about them. There was that one that looked like, you know, a house. No not that one, the one with the tree. Well I guess they both had trees but I meant the other. Come to think of it they all kinda looked like houses so never mind. They say, "Pics or it didn't happen". I have no pics so perhaps it didn't happen. It would be an odd thing to dream about though, even as odd dreams go.

Saturday we worked on cleaning up the back deck and I must say it's impressive. The dark wood cleaned up very well with a bit of TLC (please don't ask why I didn't do this 5 years ago, I didn't know it was going to be this easy). Using a power washer and some cleaning type stuff from Home Depot the wood is no longer dark; in fact it almost looks new. Tonight since we are not supposed to get rain I may go ahead with staining and sealing it, I should have enough for 2 coats but it takes 24 hours to dry.

Saturday morning and Friday we spent a lot of time packing things up and moving them to a storage unit we have rented. We have almost all of the larger items out of the house that are not used on a daily basis. Last remaining things are the TV, couch, dressers, bed and crib. We have also packed up most of Hunters toys but he's dealing rather well with what he was left.

Saturday morning we worked on the sidewalk in front of the house. We have had a set of sections that didn't match up well and ended up leaving a trip line if you were not careful. I picked up a 6' crowbar and borrowed another from the neighbor to move them. A bit of sand underneath to right them and it looks and feels much better than before. Sounds like 5 minutes of work but it was closer to 3 hours. Much cheaper and easier than I would have thought. Thirty bucks for the bar and 3 bags of sand at maybe 4 dollars each. Problem solved.

I'm amazed at how big some of our rooms look after we have all of this moved. Our living room has nearly doubled in size and the smaller bedrooms have a considerable amount of room as well (both still have a bed and dresser). I'm still not sure what to do with 2 of the computers, I don't care to store them but I would like them out of the way. I'm sure I will figure something out.

We checked out the new construction home last night. We like it but it is difficult to picture how it will look when completed as right now it's just drywall and plywood floors. The front and back yards are both bigger than our current. All 3 bedrooms upstairs have walk in closets and the master has a bath. It is nice but expensive. Will be interesting to see it completed if we decide to make an offer.

We met with a couple lenders and choose one. I also received a copy of my credit report and was surprised when my lowest number of the three came back at 791. Somehow Dawn beat me with a low of 797. I think it would be difficult to get much higher than that, not that it matters at this point as we were approved for well over what we intend to spend.

Congrats Seth!

Well I got mad at Bubble Bobble at level 76 or so. It's a level where you have to bubble hop quickly to the top of the screen and I'm just not that good at doing so. I kept getting killed so I had to take a break from it. I popped into my save of Zelda (purchased everything because I was bored and gambled my way to big money, got the 2 hearts you can easily get and the 2nd sword). I managed to get all the way through levels 1-8 in a surprising amount of time. I remember the game taking me quite a while to get through but it's probably because I was on limited time when I picked it up (parents didn't let me play non-stop).

I popped in Zelda 2 because I remember it being fun. I managed to complete the first temple (grr I hate those knights) and made it halfway to the 2nd before calling it a night. Fun game and a lot of memories there.

So we started looking at house again. We don't care for our school district and Hunter will begin school in less than a year so it's about time to get to looking. We checked out 3 houses last night, a short sale, foreclosure and one for sale (normal?).

All 3 were 3 bedroom, 2 car attached garage, 2+ bathroom. The first, short sale, was built in 1995 and featured an annihilated privacy fence, curled shingles on the room, chipped and missing paint and that's just the exterior. Obviously the person living there did not care for the place as he was losing it. The interior was worse and would require a considerable amount of work to bring it up to date.

The 2nd house didn't have a fenced in back yard and the front/back yard was fairly small. The master bedroom was interesting because part of the room was taken up by a hallway leading to the master bath. The hallway had 2 sliding door closets. Otherwise it wasn't a bad house.

The 3rd (foreclosure I believe), had a much better layout for the master bedroom and I believe it was slightly larger as well. It had an interesting bathroom just inside the house, it was a toilet across from a sink and the door was roughly ¾ normal size. The bad thing about this house was the small back yard terminated into a set of train tracks and high power lines. Not exactly something I want to live beside. It also had a small gazebo and shed in the back, neat but the gazebo isn't something I'm likely to utilize.

Our realtor also mentioned she knows of some new construction that are scheduled to be completed around November. We will probably take a look at a few of these next time we go to check things out. We're filling out loan applications to see about pre-approval now since we're serious about getting something done. It will be interesting to see how much we will be approved to borrow.

On June 1^st we had a boy. His name is Chance, everyone is doing well. We were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday and aside from the sleepless nights all is well.

While playing the song "American Pie" Hunter said, "I like this song daddy".

Hunter & I went over to my parents this weekend to put in some baffles so we could blow in cellulose insulation. This isn't a fun job by any means but it will end up saving money so it's completely worth the effort. So Saturday morning I'm up dark and early around 5:30 am (very rare for me), hit the shower and get Hunter up and off we go. We get there by 8 and hit Menards to pick out the supplies we need, mainly just the baffles but also some masks.

By 8:45 we're up in the attic and trying to get some things working. Their house is different than mine as they have 48" centered rafters and I believe mine are 24". They also have purlins between the rafters which I do not have. This makes it more difficult to put in the baffles as they will restrict the air flow if we don't work around them. This is the main thing that forced us to take longer.

By the time we had all the baffles in and built a box around the chimney vent it was 3:30 pm and no way we'd be able to blow in the insulation before I needed to be home so we called it at that point. We're hoping next Saturday we will be able to get this done but it kinda depends on if we're having a baby at the time. Hopefully the baby will wait but you never know.